INGENUITY AND LUXURY 



was finished it was placed between pasteboards and 

 pressed, the pressing usually being done by the weight 

 of the seamstress who sat upon it. 



The method of marking out the gloves from patterns, 

 and cutting with shears, was slow and expensive, and 

 careless cutters frequently ruined the skins. But this 

 method was soon superseded by the use of dies for 

 cutting, which greatly shortened and simplified the 

 process. 



These dies were made of metal, with cutting edges 

 like a cooky-cutter, these edges corresponding to the 

 marks made by the "plummets" when the patterns 

 were used. With such dies no marking was neces- 

 sary, and a single blow of a wooden maul upon the die 

 performed the work formerly done with the shears. 

 In this manner the time of cutting out a glove was re- 

 duced from several minutes to seconds, accuracy and 

 uniformity were insured, and spoiling the gloves by 

 a miscut was impossible. These dies were first made 

 in pairs for cutting out left- and right-hand gloves, 

 but one was soon found to answer every purpose, cut- 

 ting either right or left by simply reversing the leather. 



This innovation greatly shortened the process of 

 manufacture, but as every stitch had to be taken by 

 hand, it was still slow, and the cost of production cor- 

 respondingly high. In 1852, however, sewing-machines 

 were introduced for stitching some parts of the glove 

 and these were gradually improved until in 1856 a 

 machine was perfected that sewed every part of the 

 glove as well as it could be done by hand except the 

 vine on the back. 



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